# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 10 14_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

31

friend and faithful helper, thy refuge and thy fortress, etc., he would still not have said as much as when he says: I am thy God. For God is and must be everything; he who offers himself as a God must be able to do all things and have power for all things. When I say: A king, I signify a man who has great honor, power, riches, etc., and who watches and cares for his subjects. When I say: A father, I understand a man who has children, and loves them heartily, tends them and takes heartfelt interest in them. When I say: A physician, I indicate a man who is concerned for the sick, visits them, and by all manner of serviceable means strives to help them to health. When I say: An advocate, a guardian, I mean a man who faithfully takes up the cause of the oppressed and the wronged, of widows and orphans, and of other afflicted persons, and faithfully serves them with counsel and deed, etc. But when I say, A God, or My God, I comprehend more than heaven and earth, and all that is therein, can give me! I understand thereby a king, father, physician, advocate, guardian, and all that I need in this temporal and in that eternal life for comfort, for protection, for help, for strength, for care, etc. Now when the Lord says: I am thy God, He binds Himself to be all this to us, and more than we can think. Consider this, then, in thy affliction, thou Christian soul, and bethink thee, when thou openest thy Catechism, that the first word is: I am God, I will lead thee, feed thee, provide for thee, protect thee, guide thee and uphold thee; why then grievest thou, as though thou hadst no God? etc.

Go on thereafter to the three Articles of the Creed. Consider from the first, that God, without all thy doing, caring and thinking, at the time that pleased Him, created thee, brought thee forth out of His nothing, formed thee so wonderfully and skilfully in thy mother's womb, adorned thee with many glorious gifts and powers of body and mind, drew thee out of thy mother's womb, was thy refuge, father, guardian and nurse, from thy mother's breasts on, and has now borne thee these twenty, thirty, forty or more years, as a man bears his son, through all the way that thou hast walked, until thou hast come to this place (to this age); that all thy days were written in His book, when as yet there was none of them; that thou art even now enclosed in His fatherly care, and livest and walkest under His government and oversight, so that thou canst never mean so well with thyself as He means with thee, etc. Consider then further from the second Article, that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, hath so loved thee that He gave Himself for thee, and redeemed thee, not with silver or gold, but with His holy, precious blood, and purchased thee to be His own. Consider then from the third, that the Holy Ghost is given thee as Comforter, Advocate, Counsellor, Helper, that He has called thee by the Word to the fellowship of Jesus Christ, enlightened, converted, sanctified thee, and sealed thy heart by Himself, that He is promised thee, that He shall abide with thee forever, and shall not forsake thee even unto death, etc.

Add then from the Lord's Prayer the sweet name of Father, which the Lord Jesus has put in thy mouth, to name and call upon God therewith. Consider that He has more love and faithfulness than all fathers and mothers in the world, that He is an all-knowing Father, to whom every concern of thy heart, before thou declarest it, is known; an ever-present Father, who is distant from thee in no place whither thy fortune or misfortune may carry thee, whose goodness and faithfulness follow thee everywhere; an almighty and rich Father, who can do more than thou askest and understandest; an all-wise Father, who knows best what serves thy good, who, when all thy counselling, pondering, thinking and caring is at an end, lacks nothing in counsel and deed and has a thousand means which are yet hidden from thee.

Consider then further, according to the fourth chief part of thy Catechism, that this everlasting Father in holy Baptism made an everlasting covenant with thee, gave thee the right and glory of His sonship, took thee into His care, provision, government and oversight, wrote thy name in heaven, and loved and chose thee in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid. Consider then finally according to the fifth chief part, that such a covenant of grace is confirmed by the partaking of the holy body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Supper, that thou art assured of union and fellowship with Jesus, that the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life are sealed, and it is promised thee that thou shalt be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and that the God of all grace, who hath called thee unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, will make thee perfect, strengthen, stablish, settle thee, etc. When now thou considerest all this, and layest it to heart, my Christian, how can comfort fail thee in thy sorrow?

The Old God.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that He cannot help, neither His ears heavy, that He cannot hear (Is. 59, 1).

An old godly peasant woman was seized with a lameness in both feet, had to lie in bed for some weeks, and believed that she would die of this sickness. Once, when her children were in the field, and had forgotten in the process to let the cattle out, the old mother hears the herdsman blowing his horn, and the cattle lowing. Thereupon she thinks of the words of Scripture: "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." Ah, thinks she, that I cannot now do; oh, if I could but get up and let my cattle out! — Thereupon she remembers the story of the man sick of the palsy, and thinks whether God could not now do as much as He did of old. Now faith began in her to strive with unbelief. Faith says: Yes, God is still the same old God. But unbelief: Yes, for thy sake He will do no miracles. Well, says she to herself, if God is the old God, then I will get up. — With this she makes the attempt, climbs by degrees out of bed, and to her astonishment she is well and hearty, drives the cattle to the herdsman, and prepares the noonday meal for her children, who likewise look upon all this with great astonishment. The Herr Pastor, wishing to visit her as a feeble patient, as usual, meets with her cheerfully coming to meet him in the yard with the words: "Der ole God lewet noch" (the old God liveth still).

(Wölbing's Christian Stories.)

A Good Find.

What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ (Phil. 3, 7).

Peter Paul Vergerius was born in Venice, and of lowly origin. But through his excellent talents and his diligence he raised himself by degrees to be Bishop of Justinopolis. He enjoyed very great confidence with the Pope, who entrusted to him several embassies to Germany, in order through him to check the further spread of the evangelical doctrine. Already, as the reward of his fidelity, the dignity of a cardinal had been promised him, when all at once everything changed. Some envious persons knew how to spread the rumor that Vergerius was a secret Protestant, and thereby brought not only his credit, but also his life into great danger. But he was up to this time so little a Protestant that he resolved to refute the evangelical doctrine publicly, in order to justify himself. Yet how wonderful are the ways in which God leads men to the knowledge of the truth. Vergerius thought most earnestly about the refutation of the Protestants, and for that reason read the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, the books of the Reformers. But grace worked so mightily upon him in the process that the light of truth suddenly dawned in his heart, and the groundlessness of the papal doctrine became clear to him. Frankly he now confessed himself an adherent of Luther, although he knew that he would thereby lose all his earthly fortune. Deprived of his bishopric, robbed of all property, he fled, in constant peril of his life, to the Grisons. Here he scattered the seed of the pure Gospel. But here also the Pope pursued him, and contrived to bring it about that he was no longer tolerated (1553). In his distress he turned to Duke Christoph of Württemberg. The latter gave him a place of refuge and bread and favor, which he used especially to procure support for those Evangelicals who were in distress for the sake of their faith.

(The same Stories.)